MUSKAANS CORNER

"By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:35 ESV

Currently in Washington D.C. our lawmakers have become ineffective due to their refusal to legislate in a bipartisan way. The Bible warns us about this in Matthew 12:25, the context is entirely different but the truth is the truth! And Jesus said; "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand." Words of warning for our beloved country in 2011.

Everyone of us knows that there is strength in numbers so why are we so divisive in the things that matter the most? Jesus made the unity of His church, His body of believers through out this world a matter of prayer to His Father in heaven. John 17:11; "I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are." Jesus is praying for His disciples that they would function as one, just as Jesus and the Father did while He was on earth! That is a unity that we cannot fathom but that is God's revealed will for Christ's body, His church through out the world!

Jesus was not just praying for His disciples, He was praying for all believers, John 17:20-21; "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us..."

Consider this what would happen if our legislators put aside partisanship in favor of doing what was right? What would happen if they viewed themselves as a unified group serving the best interests of all the people? Stable the donkey and the elephant for a term, seek God's face in prayer and watch what happens when there is unity.

What would happen if born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ dropped their labels, Moral Majority, Tea Party, Evangelicals, Catholic, Independent, Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Lutheran etc? I'm not suggesting a mass exodus from brick and mortar churches but rather a casting aside of divisive labels. There are born again believers in all these and others, how can we as believers unite?

As I was praying the answer came, what if anything connects us now? The Holy Spirit!!! He is what we have in common no matter where we worship, He is the power that answers Jesus prayer for unity because we can never pull it off on our own.

Again this is not a call for inclusion with all other religions, this is unity within the body of Jesus Christ no matter where in the world they are. "In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit." Ephesians 1:13.

"Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit and there are varieties of service but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it." 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 12-13, 27.

Father God, may Christ's body of believers cry out to You, seek Your face, confess our sins and pray as one, that Your Holy Spirit would move in all of us and unit us as Jesus prayed. It is in His name I pray. Amen.

Imagine what would happen if we stand united in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit...eye has not seen what is possible for those who believe and ask.